


oracle

by twelveam



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Magic-Users, POV Second Person, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twelveam/pseuds/twelveam
Summary: you take the long way around, but get to the end anyway.
Relationships: Chara & Frisk (Undertale)
Kudos: 4





	1. 00. in the spaces between

**Author's Note:**

> i started this fic because i love the aesthetic of a golem with greenery blooming from their body so !

Four walls and a doorway.

Four walls painted an off white and a doorway that is always open. No windows. Nothing else in the room but the bed you sleep in and your cane propped against it. 

There used to be things. Yarn in a multitude of colors, overflowing from a basket. A bedside table with flowers. A vibrant voice and the person who spoke with it, the light of your heart. Now there is you and the bed and the smooth weight of your cane in your hands sometimes. 

You don’t leave the room. There is nowhere to go and they say you are too unwell to leave anyways. They don’t tell you what’s wrong. They only watch with worried eyes when you stand and sway dizzily, when your hands shake in the mornings, when you watch your food with a wariness that is unnatural and don’t eat any of it. 

You catch colors in the corners of your eyes sometimes and try to follow them, try to drag your unwilling mind into remembering where all your things went, why you are so alone, what has happened to you. You listen to clocks tick on and feel comforted but don’t know why. You never look at calendars. 

The days repeat.

The days repeat.

The days repeat. 

Your mind becomes clearer the more time passes and turns back. Some days you can almost feel the threads come together. You think you made a sweater once or twice, striped in bold colors. Your hands run through the motions of knitting and they do it smoothly. You run through the motions of living just barely. You are watched with worried eyes. The murmurs grow louder. The days repeat.

Something gives. 

Something snaps.

The days rewind.


	2. like a patient etherized

You get up early.  
  
The floor is cold under your feet and creaks when you put your weight on it. You stagger over to the bathroom and wash your face. The faucet is squeaky, the water cold. This worries you for a reason and you watch your face twist into a frown through the mirror.

It feels off somehow, like the muscles are stretching strangely. The water darkens your hair to a murky gray and you get stuck like that for a moment, watching droplets roll down your face. You can't hear them when they hit the sink but the sound of them still echoes strangely in your head, a loud plink with every drop that falls.  
  
You leave the bathroom not entirely awake and only a little bit more clear minded. The house remains silent while you walk through it. It is unbearably cold and the worry creeps from your mind into your chest and stays there, heavy. The cold is bad for them. You hope it warms up soon.   
  
The kitchen is a welcome sight when you finally get there, small and cramped though it is. You pull eggs out of the refrigerator and try to pay less attention to how bare it is, a carton of milk and a bit of cheese some of the only things left. Your hands shake when you crack the eggs so you make them scrambled.   
  
You feel a new worry nagging at the back of your mind. They might not like the eggs but it’s all you’ve got right now. You hope they'll still eat it. You remind yourself to go shopping later. You haven’t gone in forever.

The eggs are added to the sandwich, plated and served with a glass of orange juice. They sit there at the counter and you watch them go cold. No one comes to eat.  
  
No one comes to eat, because no one is there.   
  
The house is empty.   
  
The house is quiet.   
  
You place your hands on the counter and the cold sinks into you like a physical weight. Water drips onto your hands and you watch in bafflement as small droplets fall silently against the snowy marble. Your eyes are burning.

The worry feels heavier now, pushing you down. You can’t understand why. Something is wrong but nothing comes to mind. You feel like you’ve fallen outside of your body, watching the droplets that roll down your cheeks with detachment. Everything is out of reach including yourself.   
  
A voice comes from far away. Slowly, it creeps closer and closer until it is right against your ears. The words it says are covered by a sound like falling rocks, harsh and discordant. You can’t hear them over the broken noise. Hands clasp your wrists and try to pull you away. You cling to the counter until your knuckles turn white. A sharp tug wrenches you back and you find yourself spinning, losing balance.   
  
You fall hard enough that when the edge of the counter meets your head, pain explodes with enough force to leave you reeling, hunched over and gasping for air. Your hands fly up to press against your head and come away sticky. The voice grows shrill. It hurts. It _hurts_ .   
  
It hurts but the cold has been driven away and you’re all of a sudden flush with heat. It hurts and you hunch over and feel yourself fall apart on the kitchen tiles but your head is clear and finally, _finally_ you can hear yourself think.   
  
The fear that follows on the heels of this realization is paralyzing.   
  
White floors, you think. White floors and white walls and a doorway that is always open.   
  
White floors and white walls and the slow rumble of murmurs rising to shrill screaming.   
  
You are not supposed to be here.   
  
You are not supposed to be _alone_.


	3. lift and drop a question (on your plate)

The first problem you have is that you’re bleeding.

Incorrect. You don’t bleed. The first problem you have is much bigger than that. The dizzying sensation of bleeding out is a holdover and a completely different problem, one much lower on the list. 

But its also the only one you know how to deal with. You deal with it. You do so by falling forward into a slump and going still. 

The screaming intensifies and you don’t so much as twitch a muscle. You lie there limp and lightheaded until the screaming stops. You lie there as something nudges you in the side, tentatively the first time and then in a sharply pointed jab the second. You lie there as clicking footsteps leave in a rush and then you lie there a little longer.

Then you stagger up on shaky feet and haul yourself over the sink where you promptly dunk your head in and turn the water on. It’s warm enough to sting and you let it run until all you can register is the pounding water and you feel less like dying. You pull your head of the sink and just barely avoid having the faucet hit your wound. It doesn’t feel very much like an accomplishment. 

The sink swims in your vision and your hands tremble when you go to turn off the water, watching it shift colors that pop and fade out in the corners of your eyes. Bad sign.

You are seconds away from toppling over or having your legs fail you and every breath you suck in feels like static shock scraping through your chest. You shove everything you feel into a heavy ball that rests at hollow of your throat and force yourself to sigh it out in one long exhale. 

You do it three more times until you feel more in control and less like letting yourself slide back down onto the kitchen floors and meeting your oncoming demise with open arms. You have problems and things to do. You summon up a plan and the jagged shards of your motivation. 

You get a move on. It’s a staggering shuffle but its all you can manage at the moment.

Looking at the egg sandwich on the counter makes you feel sick down to your core in a way that has nothing to do with your body. You pick it up anyways, and take the glass of juice with it. 

The house is empty so no one sees you choke it down. You down the juice right after and the taste of oranges clings unpleasantly to your tongue as you make your way through the single hallway. You feel slightly more energized but you know it won’t last. It never does.

There’s your room. 

White walls. No window. 

You avoid looking too closely at anything but the curved handle of your wooden cane near the bed. It’s quick work to place it at your side while you kneel and shove at the bed, muscle memory coming back to life as you struggle a moment with the floorboards. 

They move away smoothly and the fear slides out of you with a gasping breath. It’s still there. 

You don’t think. The heavy bag slides itself onto your shoulders with a familiar weight. You grab your cane on the way out. Your hands are already shaking but the feeling of a stomach full with actual food steadies you more than you would admit. 

The polished wood clenched in your palms signals safety and a weapon. A security blanket with bite. 

You breathe in and the voice returns. You choke on the exhale and freeze in place. 

There’s another voice with it and this one fills you with cold. You don’t think. Your cane finds its way off the ground and into both of your hands, arms tight with tension. You feel foggy, mind warring with the tight, roiling need for violence and the sick feeling of needing to  _ escape _ . 

The cold part of you says it would be easy. Two swings, if the first one doesn’t connect. The movement is already choreographed neatly in your head.

You don’t care about the first voice but its new pitch is what knocks you out of the fog. You blink back into awareness and taste blood on your tongue. The taste is rust and razor wire. You unclench your teeth, swallow it and turn away. 

It burns on the way down and you force yourself to focus on the sharpness of it instead of the cold bursting in your chest. You remind yourself have other problems right now and it takes a full moment of steeling your nerves to walk past them, near invisible in the way that you move, shoulders hunched and steps light. You don’t listen to pitched argument going on behind you.

The door is already open. 

The grass is dead and crunchy underneath your feet. You make your way to the back of the house and stretch out, rolling yourself onto the balls of your feet and throwing your body forwards. The forest swallows your shadow almost immediately, dark and cold and foreboding. 

You don’t think. Your body knows how to do this. You fall into rhythm, into a steady pounding run that leeches tension out of you with every bit of distance you gain. Occasionally, pain sparks to life in your head, at the pounding soles of your feet, in shocks and flashes all across your body. 

You ignore it.

The forest melds into the rocky foothills of the mountain. 

You know where the path is.

You climb.


	4. and the evening spread across the sky

The mountain is familiar. 

It’s familiar in the same sickening way the burn in your chest is familiar. It makes something in you hurt, slow and aching, rising and intensifying with every step you take forward.

It feels like you’re drowning in syrup, having it fill your lungs with something sticky and heavy, collecting at the base of your throat so you can’t swallow it down. So you can’t breathe past it. You don’t think.

You try to focus on your physical hurts, press your feet down harder against the sharp rocks in hopes that the pain will register, push yourself even further past your limits so your muscles burn. It doesn’t work.

The pain cools and fades away before it can become effective, not nearly bad enough for your mind to register it as an actual hurt. You grind your teeth and keep walking, tired and angry. 

There are hours before you reach the peak and you spend those searching for tracks. It’s enough of an execise to be a distraction and you skirt around the areas people tend to visit. Instead you pass past the black caves and the dead village turned flower field, slowing down to a walk when you step over the buttercups.

By the time you reach the crumbled pillars you feel more settled, less inclined to tear yourself out of your skin.

It is here you stop and sit down. The pack finds its way off your shoulders and onto the ground, cane set neatly beside it. You take stock. The sensation of bleeding has stopped, and no pain registers from your head wound or the cuts on your legs which have turned to scars. They will fade within the hour. 

The food has yet to come up so you think its reasonable to hope that it will stay down. You are no longer hurting as badly, and the syrup sick feeling has faded to a low hum. You hope it doesn’t rise up again. You’ll have less time for distractions from this point on.

Carefully, you spread your hands, palms up and open. You stop breathing and watch them shake, tremors spreading through your body. Eventually, they peter out. 

You don’t breathe in again. 

With steady hands you open the pack and pull out the clothing at the top. Over the flimsy shirt you’re wearing, white like everything else in that godforsaken place, goes a thick, cable knit sweater. It’s overly long, halfway down your thighs, with sleeves that hide your hands from sight.

The rich red color of it is a comfort.

Heavy socks are paired with sturdy boots, already worn in and comfortable. You feel more like yourself and less like the half-broken shell of a person you woke up as. It’s only a little bit of difference from what you think is your usual self but it counts. You hope it counts.

You smooth a hand over the remaining sweaters, folded neat and small. There are two of them, both child-sized, with one of them unfinished.

The stray ends are tied together in a knot so the whole thing doesn’t unravel and the sight of it threatens to undo your hard-won calm. You push them down to the bottom of the pack, forcing your hands to remain gentle. 

The threads catch against the tips of your fingers and you shove down the violent spike of emotion that suddenly rises. A memory slides across your mind, golden and softly blurred. You allow yourself a moment of grief.

A few seconds to curl up and hold it close, let the bittersweet of old loss and briefly remembered happiness touch against your heart before you fold it away. You remember them clearer now and its enough. Its enough. You let the emotions fade away and refocus.

There are several things left in the pack including a tightly folded blanket, a heavy set of knitting needles with points that gleam sharply in the fading light, a leather notebook and a container of black pills. Holding the container makes your mind go quiet.

Things arrange themselves better at the feel of it in your hand and you pry the container open to take one out, holding it up. The light goes straight through like it would through glass. You stare for a single, quiet moment then put it back and close the pack.

It’s not yet time. 

You can do without them for now. 

Smoothly, you pull yourself up and swing the pack over your shoulders to settle against your back. Your cane finds its way back into your hands, curved handle fitting neatly into your palm and you rock back and forth on your feet to settle yourself into the feeling of fading away. 

Everything is distant and clear, no thoughts buzzing in your mind, no emotions crowding against your chest. Nothing. 

You walk past the crumbled pillars, past the overgrown bushes and twisting vines. You pick your way almost delicately across the broken rocks until you reach the edge. 

The last of the sunlight slips away. 

You step forward and fall.


	5. through certain half-deserted streets

You land on your feet.

The impact runs from the soles of your feet and jolts sharply up your spine, jarring your whole body. You turn the movement into a crouch and let the aftershocks run their course. Standing up takes a moment and you steady yourself with your cane, leaning against it as you take in your surroundings.

The sunlight has faded almost entirely and your eyes narrow as they adjust to the lack of light. Looking up you can see a thin slice of the evening sky in the far distance, and closer a strange pale light that spans the entirety of the area you fell through. You don’t like the way it feels. You move on.

Despite the dim light you can still see golden buttercups pushing up from the ground. There’s so much of them that they’ve grown over each other in overlapping layers, a pale gold sea of petals. You walk over them as gently as you can but they seem much sturdier than those on the surface, bouncing right back up with every step.

There are pillars here too, old and cracked with age. You walk past them quietly, keeping your eyes sharp.

In the corner of your eyes, something moves. It's small and camouflaged well enough that you can only catch glimpses of it as it follows you from a distance. You keep your stride slow and even, sticking close to wall as you look for an exit of some type.

It keeps its distance until the buttercups thin out and turn into a short and somewhat rocky path, at the end of which lies a looming doorway.

The end of the room.

A thin vine whips silently forward in the gloom, aiming for your legs. You buckle as it wraps around your leg and lash out immediately, cane shooting out with precision to slam into the face of...a flower. It yelps. You stare at it, hand still outstretched and cane held uncomfortably tight. 

With one knee crushed against the rocky ground in a half-kneel and the rest of your body thrumming with tension, you keep unblinking eyes straight forward even as you pull your cane back and lean against it. The flower shakes itself off, petals swishing. It has a face. 

“Howdy!” says the flower, with a concerning amount of cheer. “Gosh I must have really scared you!”

It greets you with a wide smile and bright button eyes, using the leaves on its side to gesture.

“That looked like a really nasty fall! Are you okay?”

You stare at the flower. The flower stares back, face twisted into a look of concern. You look down at you leg, where there are no vines to be seen. The flower looks down as well. 

“Oh!” he says. “You must have tripped over something! It’s really dark in here after all!”

Concern drips off every word. His eyes are wide and worried, petals drooping slightly as he leans towards you. You consider telling the flower that you already know, that you’ve been watching him watch you for the past few minutes, that your eyes were sharp enough to see him move. 

That you saw him snap the vine into place. 

But you’re impressed by his skill, his dedication to a role you’re curious to know why he’s playing and you want to see how far he takes it. The most talented actor you’ve ever seen and he’s a flower. Well. That’s interesting.

“Sorry,” you say, voice hoarse with disuse. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh!” he says, bobbing slightly. “I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower.”

You give him a nod. 

“Thanks.”

He smiles very widely.

“You're welcome!” he chirps. 

Silence reigns for a good long moment. You’re out of things to say. The flower is watching you expectantly. What he's waiting for you don't know but after a period of time where you both do nothing but stare at one another he leans back on his stalk and takes a long breath.

“So!” he says. “You're new to the underground, ain'tcha?”

You nod at him and he launches into a well rehearsed and interesting spiel on your soul. Which you have apparently. And love, which you don't. You could have told him that. A sudden, uncomfortable tug at your chest draws your attention back to him.

He's pulled your soul out into the open. It's smaller than you thought it would be and it feels...fragile.  
  
You stare at the small heart in front of you, giving off its own light, then drag yourself up to your feet to get a closer look. Still leaning on your cane for stability you poke and prod at it, fascinated with the way small tingles travel up your arm with every touch.

Flowey watches you attempt to trace across a crack and double over from the sudden rush of hurt and he does it with a sharp look in his eye. You know assessment when you see it.  
Something deep inside of you recoils at how vulnerable it feels to have it here in front of you and with every passing moment you can feel your apathy drain away to make way for a growing wellspring of emotion.

It feels rather like you've been scraped raw, the hollow of your ribcage cracked open so anyone can see the tangled mess of emotions you've only barely managed keep from crawling out. The time you spent trying to wall it all away feels like a waste now. There is no wall left and it's just you. Bad.  
  
You pull yourself back forcibly, stepping away from the glowing light of your soul. You wave a hand at Flowey to let him know he can continue talking and make an effort to look less disconcerted. It doesn't work.  
  
“Down here,” says Flowey the Flower, finally losing bits and pieces of his shiny bright good person mask. “We share love through little white friendliness pellets!”  
  
His smile has stretched across his face and curled up at the ends and anticipation lights his eyes.  
  
“Move around,” says Flowey. “Try to catch them all!”  
  
Small white seeds surround your soul and one by one they shoot forward. You attempt to direct the heart without reaching out to touch it and it moves in small, jerking motions. Searing pain explodes across your chest as the seeds hit point blank. Well. Fuck.  
  
A weakness spreads through your limbs and you regard Flowey and his muffled cackling through the ringing in your ears and suddenly blurry vision with an interest that warps slowly into something sharper.

Clever flower, smothering his prey in honey sweetness to lure them in and tear them apart. You appreciate his artistry at practiced manipulation and the horrible face he's now wearing, no doubt to hammer in your impending death. It feels familiar, nostalgic. You've played a part like this before.  
  
The seeds surround your wavering soul in neat rings and you almost can't help the vicious look spreading across your face. Clever, murderous flower.  
  
You're going to snap his stem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small note here that oracle does not know about flowey technically being a kid at this point in time! this note is a surprise tool that will help us later!


	6. the muttering retreats

Pain like this hasn’t touched you in a while. 

Maybe because you haven’t been fully awake in so long. Or maybe because in the long list of ways you’ve been hurt so far, a direct attack on your soul - _the very culmination of your being!_ Flowey’s voice sing-songs in your head - hasn’t been one of them.

You feel cold but at the same time, a familiar crawling heat begins to form in your chest. It feels sharp, like the sudden hurt after a cut with a scalpel, a burning line of pain. You’re angry. Badsign. 

Anger is supposed to be cold. You _need_ it to be cold. It isn’t. The shreds of your control have left you prey to instinct and the tightening in your chest feels like the ticking before an explosion.

Flowey circles you with his seeds and says something you cannot hear over the empty roaring in your ears. You struggle to get yourself back to normal, grasping for threads that have snapped long ago. 

This is your soul’s fault.

White seeds blur through the air as he launches them towards you. You meet them with open hands, rushing forward to reach for your soul before it gets torn to bits. The hurt wipes your vision white for a moment and static shudders through your whole body. It doesn’t last long.

You’re an old hat at this play, shifting underneath blows, a blur lit only by the weak flickering of your soul. The problem is that it keeps hurting, a deep pulsing ache that has nothing to do with your body. And that’s a problem.

This is the flower’s fault.

No. 

This is _your_ fault.

This is the thought that wrests the last of your control out of your fingers.

Seeds slam into your shoulders, tear into the delicate skin of your neck. It’s too late. The pain recedes to a dull thumping and you can feel your soul shake in tightening cage of your fingers. You can break it now. It would be easy. There would be no more hurt.

The thought that it might kill you crosses your mind for a moment and it means nothing, not to someone like you. But they could be down here and so you have to find them. You’ve got to be alive for that.

And the flower has to be dead.

So you _don’t_ snap your soul between your fingers. Instead you let go for a moment and allow it to bob weakly beside you for a moment, an open wound bleeding out where anyone can sink their teeth into it. 

Flowey takes the bait. You’re ready for him.

As it turns out, someone else is as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> toriel!


End file.
